FORMING IMPRESSIONS 1

Forming Impressions of a Person Based on Personality and Profession

This experiment investigates how a college student who is taking a

course in experimental psychology combines two different types of

information, information about a person’s personality and information about

a person’s profession, to form an impression of how much she or he would

like that person. The hypothesis is a person will be liked more when the

person is described with positive adjectives and has a socially respected

profession.

Two variables are manipulated in this experiment. The first variable is

the personality of the person to be rated; the adjectives used on the stimuli

sheet describe positive, neutral, or negative personality traits. The second

variable that is manipulated is the profession of the person who is rated:

bank president, bank teller, or bank robber. This study has a 3 x 3

(Personality x Profession) factorial, single-participant, experimental design

(Bordens & Abbott, 2014, pp. 314-319 & 442-445). The prediction is the

professions of bank president and bank teller will be rated higher than the

profession of bank robber when those professions are described with positive

adjectives, but the president and teller will not be rated higher than the

robber will when they are described with negative adjectives.

The participant (you) should read and sign the informed consent form

(Appendix A). Then read the directions below and the 45 groups of words on

the page that contains the stimuli (Appendix B). Each group of words is a

different combination of two adjectives and a noun that describes personality

FORMING IMPRESSIONS 2and profession. After reading each group of words, the participant should

rate how much she or he would like the person who is described. The rating

should be made using a 10-point equal-interval scale ranging from 1 (dislike

very much) to 10 (like very much). All of the rating scores should be

recorded on the stimuli sheet.

In order to find if there is a reliable main effect for either independent

variable (factor) or if there is a reliable interaction of the two factors, perform

a two-way analysis of variance on the rating scores using the Exp 3 SAS

program.docx that is on my webpage.

1. Logon to a computer, open a web browser, such as Mozilla Firefox, and go

to my webpage http://courses.missouristate.edu/JRosenkoetter/

2. Click on Exp-3, then both Exp 3 SAS program.docx and Sample Third

Report, then OK. The programs will open using Microsoft Word.

3. Save the files in some location where you can find them, such as, on the

Desktop, in your USB drive, or in OneDrive by clicking File Save

As Computer Browse Desktop (or your favorite location)

Save.

4. Close () the files, my webpage, the web browser, and everything else.

5. Go to where you saved Exp 3 SAS program.docx , and open it with Word.

6. Put your name on the top line.

7. Put the 45 rating scores from the Stimuli Sheet into the file by following

the directions, which refer to the lines with the numbers 1. to 45.

FORMING IMPRESSIONS 3

Leave at least one blank space between the professions and your

number.

8. Click File Save .

9. Next, click File Print Print to print a copy of the program with

the data in it.

10. On a computer that has SAS installed, click on the SAS icon.

If the SAS icon is not visible, click on the Windows icon at the bottom

left corner of the screen, scroll down the menu until you get to SAS,

drop down the SAS menu, in click on SAS 9.4 (English) .

(11. If you do not have SAS installed on the computer you are using, e-

mail the file to me at JRosenkoetter@MissouriState.edu )

12. Close (X) the Change Notice.

13. Copy the program that you saved in step 8. (The Word Document

[*.docx] version.)

14. Paste the program into the Editor window.

15. In the ribbon near the top, click on the running-man icon . It stands for "run" or "submit." (Or you can click on Run Submit .)

16. When the Results Viewer – SAS Output window arrives, check the output to confirm that your name is on the top line, the number of observations used is 45, and the last page is a figure.

17. Open the Sample Third Report file. Go to the last page, right-click, and “cut” the sample figure that is there. Go to the last page of the SAS Output; right-click and “copy” the figure. “Paste” the figure from your

FORMING IMPRESSIONS 4

SAS Output on the last page of the Sample Third Report. Keep a digital version of the Sample Third Report file for later use.

18. Then Print the SAS Output with File Print Print .

(The results can also be printed by clicking on the printer icon .)

19. When you are finished, leave SAS with File Exit and OK.

20. When the question appears: “Do you want to save the changes to Editor – Untitled?” Click on No.

Bring (a) this handout, (b) the four-page printout of Exp 3 SAS

program.docx with the data entered into it, (c) the 24-page output of the Exp

3 SAS program.sas, (d) the red-colored handout about the Alpha Level, (e)

the blue-colored handout on Effect Size, and (f) a calculator (or cell phone) to

the next lab. You could also bring a computer with the Sample Third Report

file installed; it will be used for this report.

Before you come to lab, it would be a good idea to try to understand

your results. A plot of the interaction-cell means is shown on the last page of

the output. You can probably understand your results faster by studying this

figure than by looking at all the numbers in the first 23 pages.

When you are ready to look at the numbers, go to page 1 of the 24-

page output and check the classification level information to see if it is

correct. If it is, go to page 2 to find if there is a significant main effect of

personality, a significant main effect of profession, and a significant

interaction effect. In the Discussion section of your report, you can discuss in

detail only those effects that are statistically significant (see Bordens &

FORMING IMPRESSIONS 5Abbott, 2014, pp. 317-319 & 442-445). The Ryan-Einot-Gabriel-Welsch

Multiple Range Test results for each factor are shown on pages 3 and 4.

If you do have a significant interaction effect, you can look at the

differences between the means of the interaction cells, which are listed on

page 23. These are called simple effects. The reliability of simple effects is

determined by the Ryan-Einot-Gabriel-Welsch Multiple Range Test for each

level of a factor. The Exp 3 SAS program is written to test for simple effects

whether there is a significant interaction effect or not. Follow the directions

in the titles on pages 5 through 22.

Your report should include an Abstract (see Bordens & Abbott, 2014,

pp. 499-501) and Figure 1 (see Bordens & Abbott, 2014, pp. 518-520) based

on the last page of the SAS output. An example Results section follows.

Results

The rating scores were analyzed with a two-way analysis of variance

for a factorial design (ANOVA). An alpha level of .05 was used for the cutoff

to decide whether there was a reliable difference between groups for all

statistical tests.

The ANOVA showed that there was a significant main effect of

personality, F(2, 36) = 541.88, MSE = 0.37, p < .001. The magnitude of the

main effect (R2) of personality was .27, which means 27% of the variation in

the scores was due to the main effect of personality. The means of the rating

scores for the three levels of personality, positive, neutral, and negative

FORMING IMPRESSIONS 6were 8.80, 6.75, and 3.20, respectively. The Ryan-Einot-Gabriel-Welsch

Multiple Range Test (REGW) (df = 36) for personality showed . . .

The ANOVA showed that there was a significant main effect of

profession, F(2, 36) = 43.71, p = .03, R² = .18. The means of the rating

scores for the three levels of profession, president, robber, and teller

were . . . The REGW (df = 36) for profession showed . . .

The ANOVA showed that there was a significant interaction effect of

personality and profession, F(4, 36) = 31.61, p = .004, R² = .03. Figure 1

shows the means of the interaction of personality and profession. The REGW

(df = 12) for positive personality adjectives showed . . . The REGW (df = 12)

for neutral personality adjectives showed . . . The REGW (df = 12) for

negative personality adjectives showed . . . The REGW (df = 12) for the

profession of bank president showed . . . The REGW (df = 12) for the

profession of bank robber showed . . . The REGW (df = 12) for the profession

of bank teller showed . . .

Discussion

The results show that there was a significant main effect of personality.

The rating scores for the three levels of personality adjectives, positive,

neutral, and negative, showed that each level of personality was significantly

different from the other two. (This is from paragraph two of the Results section.)

¶ Main effect of profession? (from paragraph three)

¶ Interaction effect of personality and profession? (from paragraph

four)

FORMING IMPRESSIONS 7

¶ Prediction supported? Please explain. Hypothesis supported?

Please explain. (from paragraph four)

¶ R2 results? (Which effect had the largest influence on the dependent variable,

the second largest?)

FORMING IMPRESSIONS 8

Appendix A

Informed Consent Form

This study is designed to investigate your impressions of people

who are described with various adjectives. There are no correct or

incorrect answers. You are just asked to give your impression of the

person described. Recording your impressions will take about 5

minutes.

You are not required to produce data for this study, but it might

make this course (PSY 302) more interesting if you did. If you do not

want to use your own impressions, you will be supplied with a set of

data from someone else. This research has not been submitted to the

Institutional Review Board of Missouri State University because only

you and John Rosenkoetter will see your results. If you do not like the

first set of results you produce, you can redo everything until you get

results that you do like. Your participation in this research is voluntary,

and you are free to withdraw at any time.

I acknowledge that I have been informed of and understand the

purpose of this study and that I freely consent to participate. I

acknowledge that I am at least 18 years of age.

Print name: __________________________________________________________

Sign name: __________________________________________________________

FORMING IMPRESSIONS 9 Date: ____________________________________

FORMING IMPRESSIONS 10

Appendix B

Stimuli Sheet

Stimulus Stimulus RatingNumber Words Score

——————————————————————— 1. Nervous bank president _____ 2. Helpful bank robber _____ 3. Incompetent bank teller _____ 4. Cruel bank president _____ 5. Ungrateful bank robber _____ 6. Unhappy bank robber _____ 7. Inoffensive bank president _____ 8. Friendly bank teller _____ 9. Helpful bank president _____10. Unhappy bank teller _____11. Stupid bank teller _____12. Dishonest bank president _____13. Happy bank robber _____14. Cheerful bank president _____15. Unsophisticated bank robber _____16. Cruel bank robber _____17. Unsophisticated bank teller _____18. Helpful bank teller _____19. Dependent bank president _____20. Incompetent bank president _____21. Cruel bank teller _____22. Nervous bank teller _____23. Optimistic bank robber _____24. Inoffensive bank robber _____25. Unhappy bank president _____26. Happy bank president _____27. Friendly bank robber _____28. Optimistic bank teller _____29. Dependent bank robber _____30. Incompetent bank robber _____31. Dependent bank teller _____32. Stupid bank robber _____33. Happy bank teller _____34. Optimistic bank president _____35. Dishonest bank teller _____36. Ungrateful bank president _____37. Cheerful bank robber _____38. Dishonest bank robber _____39. Ungrateful bank teller _____40. Inoffensive bank teller _____41. Cheerful bank teller _____42. Friendly bank president _____43. Nervous bank robber _____44. Unsophisticated bank president _____45. Stupid bank president _____